In self-service retail establishments, such as grocery stores, drug stores, department stores and the like, the retail goods are generally arranged on open shelves for selection by the customer as they walk around the shop or store. The customer pushes a grocery cart or carries a hand-held basket through the aisles between the shelves and removes the desired items from each shelf. The customer then takes their completed selection of goods to a cashier located at a sales terminal or check-out area. At the sales terminal, the customer unloads their purchases from the cart or basket onto a counter or conveyor and the cashier enters or scans the price of each item into the cash register, which computes the total cost of the purchase. The cashier or the customer then packs the items into plastic bags, paper bags, or boxes for the convenience of the customer in carrying the selected items home. After the cashier receives the cash, check, or credit card payment for the total purchase price of the selected items, the customer takes the bags of groceries or other goods and leaves the check-out station to return home.
The problems associated with this type of retail shopping are well-known. From the customer's standpoint, there is congestion arising from the use of shopping carts in narrow aisles, standing in line to reach a check-out terminal and to pay for the selected items, and the inconvenience of having to unload the selected items onto the conveyor just to turn around and load them back into the cart after the items are bagged. From the retailer's perspective, there are labor costs associated with providing cashiers at a plurality of check-out terminals, labor costs associated with restocking the shelves of products, security costs and shoplifting losses, and a limited amount of shelf space available for displaying the retail items.
Various systems have been proposed to overcome these problems and to facilitate customer selection of items, communication of the selection to a supply area, and transportation of selected items from the supply area to a station for delivery to the customer and receipt of payment from the customer. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,047,614 to Bianco provides the customer with a scanner or portable terminal capable of scanning bar codes of various products while he is at home. The customer then takes his portable terminal to the retail store and connects it with a host computer at the store. The host computer will print out a list for the customer or, in accordance with another embodiment of the invention, the host computer will transmit the list of desired items to a warehouse where the customer's order is manually or automatically packaged and moved to a pick-up location along with the total invoice for payment of the items selected.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,186,281 to Jenkins also discloses a method of shopping wherein a credit card, debit card or special card issued by the retail establishment identifies the customer as they select each item from the display area. A magnetic stripe reader is positioned at each display area for receiving the credit card and keypads are provided so that the customer can indicate which item they desire by an alpha numeric location. This information is transmitted to a pre-check terminal and to the product stocking area so that the selected items can be bagged or boxed for the customer. In addition, as the items are assembled from the product stocking area, a record of the selected items is maintained and printed by a terminal. When the customer has finished shopping, they then proceed to the check-out terminal and give the cashier the previously used credit card or debit card. Here, the customer receives an itemized, totaled receipt prepared by the check-out station including their identification number and account verification. The customer then leaves the retail store and proceeds to the finalizing terminal to receive his purchase. The operator of the finalizing terminal compares the receipt obtained by the customer from the check-out terminal with the record printed by the finalizing terminal and, if the receipts are in agreement, the operator charges the customer's account and the purchases are loaded into their vehicle for completion of the transaction.
Further, U.S. Pat. No. 4,373,133 to Clyne, et al. discloses a portable scanner which attaches to the shopping carts or baskets commonly used in retail grocery stores. As the customer places the items they select off the shelves into the cart, they simultaneously take a scanning wand attached to the scanner and move it across the bar code indicia for that item. The scanner device is adapted to read both the price and the weight of the selected item. Thus, when the customer proceeds to the sales terminal, the total weight of their purchases is compared to the total weight displayed by the scanner. If the weights are in agreement, the sales clerk then produces a bill on the cash register equal to the total price shown on the scanner.
These prior art systems, however, do not eliminate the lengthy and sometimes objectional check-out queues in which the customer must wait just to purchase his selected items.